Quick question!

[randomling]

Does anyone have recs or anti-recs for Pinterest?

I'm thinking social bookmarking could be a Cool and Useful thing to do. Maybe I could keep a real-name one and a fannish one, or something.

This brought to you by this super-cool board.

Comments

[kaesa]

Ooh, that is a cool board!

I don't really have any recs -- Pinterest makes it really really hard to find the original pinner, and to have discussions, so while there are communities, they're kind of hard to find and while I have tons of followers, none of them are actually new friends or anything.

Here is my Pinterest. Mostly I use it to keep track of pretty pictures so that if I'm low on inspiration when I'm writing I can find some suitably vivid image to write about. I haven't really used it much lately.

I think my only anti-rec is more of a warning: There are a lot of spammers who are trying to use pinterest to sell their SEO strategies, diets, porn, etc. There are also a lot of pinners who pin things to inspire them to exercise/lose weight -- which is something I am really not into, but I wouldn't mention it except that some of it borders on actively disturbing/upsetting pro-ana macros. So before I follow someone because they pinned a cute picture, I make sure they are a.) a real person, and b.) following all their boards won't get me a ton of "thinspiration" stuff.

[redsnake05]

I have a RL pinterest only, which I use for science, crafting and food. I enjoy it, but it's not really a conversational place. I have other RL friends who use it and we all follow each others boards and get excited about pins and making things, so that is great. I don't think I would like it so much if I didn't have people to talk about it with, but ymmv.

And, yes, I agree with the comment above: while I have not encountered spam or anything disturbing, I think it's important to be discriminating about what I follow. In many cases I prefer to follow individual boards, not all the boards a person may have.

[flamebyrd]

I have a 'real name' pinboard account I use for recipes, crafting and (occasionally) clothing.

Like kaesa, I haven't exactly made friends with it. Random people follow me, it's a little intimidating.

It's also worth keeping in mind that you can't bookmark things that don't have pictures (and I think it once rejected a picture for being too small).

[kareila]

It probably depends on your intended use case, since it's primarily visual. I found I haven't used it very much, because I'm more of a textual thinker. But one of my BFFs has used it to great effect to document sources and inspirations for reproductions of jewelry and clothing.